A Writer's Sketchbook
by Arixa23
Summary: Just a collection of my drabbles, outtakes,unfinished stuff, etc. for all fandoms, including Cirque du Soleil, Cats the musical, Shakespeare, etc.
1. Cirque

This document will be kind of a writing sketchdump for all the fanfic snippets and concept phrases and drabbles and outtakes which I've written and haven't seen fit to post as their own separate things. They're arranged chronologically within the subcategories, so the stuff which appears first under every subcategory is the stuff I wrote first. I can't put dates on everything because I don't _know_ the dates on most of them, not having seen fit to provide them when I scribbled them down.

I'll update this periodically, so check if you want to find new things. I'll arrange everything in chapters by general fandom (for example, Cirque, Cats, Shakespeare, etc.), and give a table of contents at the top just in case you feel like skipping to the stuff you're familiar with. This is the Cirque chapter.

...

**Table of Contents:**

Mystere du le Kooza

Les Chemins Invisibles (all of the shows)

Kooza

La Nouba crossovers (yes, apparently all my LN drabbles so far are crossovers with other Cirque shows)

Alegría

...

**Mystere du le Kooza**

"Trickster, you _cannot_ keep walking over everyone like this!"

The Trickster looked amused. "Can't I?" he said. "Whyever not?"

...

"And what does it matter if we're straight or we're gay? Those are just words, narrator. Just labels. We're above labels now, aren't we?"

"Well... I..."

"Yes, Moha, we are. Now stop worrying about it and kiss me."

...

"Moha?"

"Mm?"

"I have a question."

"Mm?"

"If you're so fixated on not being thought of as gay, _why do you wear so much pink?_"

...

The problem with you... is that you don't know when to stop.

...

"Trickster?"

The Trickster swiveled around in his chair as Moha-Samedi addressed him from across the table. "Yes?"

"Um... I'd been wanting to ask you this for a while. Why are your eyes so white? I mean, any special reason?"

Trickster looked thoughtful. "Well, you know how they say the eyes are the windows to the soul?"

"Yes?"

"It means I have no soul."

The words were said in complete earnest. It took Moha-Samedi a moment to recuperate enough to speak.

"No, really."

"No, really, narrator. _Really_ I don't know why. It's probably a god thing. But the former is always an option."

_A/N: This was very obviously the inspiration for **Irises**, though it was written more than half a year earlier. Or, rather, they both sprang from the same question/concept and this kept it in the back of my mind._

...

_After the Storm:_

After his partner had gone to sleep, even breath directed regularly and peacefully into the pillow, he sometimes got up and paced the dark, open stage, walking back and forth under the faint moonlight filtering its way through the roof. This space was familiar now, not home but a place to stay away from it in, and he could live here without worry or plans, just one day at a time, living life.

He would never tell anyone, not even his closest more-than-friend here, what the reason for his midnight walking way. Never tell anyone about the times he woke up at night, choking down the scream in his throat as the gloved hands reached toward him for the thousandth time.

It is a terrible thing for a god to admit that he has lost. It was so, so hard for him to tell himself that he had forfeited the game and Kooza did not belong to him anymore.

There were always thoughts, tucked in the back of his head, of going back one day, figuring something out, finding help, finding a way. But mostly he walked in a blue bubble of his own, wrapping magic and indifference around him like a shawl, and there was no one from before to notice the difference, if there was any outward difference to be seen when he was with others.

Almost no one. He conjured up Charivari 8 sometimes, when he was alone in the tower, to remind himself of what his kingdom had looked like. They would talk, the bataclan sitting quietly and unnoticeably in a back corner of the stage while the show which they were not part of played its sound and colors outside. She saw he was different, and she knew why. She was only one of his creations, never meant for a purpose other than turning flips and balancing on balls, and her golden eyes lacked pupils; but she was sentient and she knew what had happened to her world and to him. It helped to have something familiar.

He would dance sometimes, alone on the stage in the pearl-and-shadow light with no music. Dance when no no could see him, showing off to no one, as the shadows called to him and he tried not to listen He would live in the day, loving and even laughing in the sunshine of colors, but in the night he could be himself, alone in a world moving at a different speed, stripped of his universe, too afraid to be angry. Only one person from this place knew any of the real reason he was here, and they didn't dare to speculate on whether what he said and did matched up. No one knew or would ever suspect that he was a refugee.

His world was still there, technically, waiting silent and dormant for him to return. He could return whenever he wanted to, whenever he wanted to die. The dark was waiting there, and he still had a life here.

He climbed the stairs back to the bedroom, feet padding silently across metal, and slipped in. He didn't get back in bed, but instead sat in one of the deep chairs, watching his partner sleep. He'd spent the night in one of these chairs a time or two before, too touchy to lie down. With any luck, this time he'd sleep without the nightmares.

_A/N: Okay, this is probably long enough to be a short oneshot by itself, but I wasn't really sure whether or not I liked it as part of the Even Gods continuum, since it kind of contradicts some of the canon and it's impossible to figure out whether it takes place before or after Explanations. I still like it a **lot**, especially since I think it's the only other fic which mentions Charivari 8, who I **really** want to do more with but who never fits in to the plot somehow..._

...

Labels. Labels. If I am anything, I am a rebellion against labels. I do everything you have been told is impossible. I am unique. I walk the world alone, laughing. Do not pity me. I chose this way of my own free will, and I do not regret. I do not need you. I do not need anyone. If you want me, you must accept this.

_A/N: Hah, a bit of a break from my usual Even Gods drabbles. Don't worry, they shall return. See below._

...

"_I do not need you, Moha-Samedi. I do not need anyone._"

Moha sighed from where he sat on the bed, hugging his knees to his chest. It was well after midnight, and this had very much not been a good night so far.

The Trickster couldn't sleep. Moha didn't know exactly what the ex-lord of Kooza's dreams - or rather nightmares - were about, but he had a good guess that they involved the Crooner. that nightmare skeleton who almost seemed worse from here than he would be in real life. But it wasn't just the dreams that bothered Trickster. It was the thought that he might be - heaven forbid - forming attachments which would not help him regain his realm.

"Trickster, it's three-thirty in the morning and you're sulking in the corner," Moha sighed, his voice more annoyed than usual due to his tiredness. "Can we go to bed already? Please?" Trickster didn't respond. He was also sitting curled up on himself on the floor in the corner of the bedroom, facing the wall.

"Moha," he said flatly. "This is just an affair. It's got to end sometime. I do _not_ need you in order to survive. I could go to any realm now, in fact maybe I should."

"I never said you needed me to survive," Moha snapped. "I may be pompous, but at least I'm not a complete self-absorbed bastard who only ever thinks of himself. Do you know how much I've gone through in order to accomodate you lusting after me? Any idea?"

It wasn't their first disagreement ever, but probably their first all-out couple fight.

"Do _you_ know what it's like to lose your entire world, Moha? If you lost Mystere? Quit whining about yourself!"

"I-"

"_Moha, be quiet. Quiet."_

Trickster's tone of voice was completely dead, and it was completely undisobeyable. Moha kept his mouth closed as he calmed down from the back-and-forth snapping.

There was silence in the room for a long time. They sat there, Moha looking at Trickster, Trickster looking at the wall.

After a long time, Trickster laid his head on his arms. His shoulders did not shake.

Moha got up softly and went over to him, knelt by him and touched his shoulder gently. Trickster's eyes were closed, his eyelashes resting on the fiery markings around his eyes. He didn't respond at all to Moha's touch.

And his partner had a flash of insight: _Holy Athena, he's younger than I am. He's just a kid._

The narrator took the god in his arms, holding _him_ for once instead of the other way around. Just holding, nothing more. Sometimes it's enough to feel that there's someone else real and there. Trickster still didn't move, could have been asleep if Moha didn't know better. To make any more would be to admit that this was happening, to admit weakness. Something he could never, ever do. Not would not, but could not.

Neither said a word. Sleep came there, in the corner on the carpeted floor, and they both knew on waking that there were many, many things which just had to be left unsaid.

_A/N: What to say about this? I can't decide whether I hate it or not. This is probably a modified version of the argument mentioned in **Irises**, but... god, I don't even know. I have no idea where my writing skills **went** for the first bit, but... meh._

_And Karitxa, shush. It was... a while ago._

...

"Damn you, Moha-Samedi. Damn you.

...Come here a minute.

I don't need you. But I do love you."

...

"I can't love somebody who doesn't _feel!_ I deal with _enough_ people who don't care one way or another who don't care one way or another what happens to me. I CAN'T DEAL WITH SOMEONE WHO ONLY HAS ONE EMOTION!"

The Trickster was in his face suddenly, leaning over him, hands pinning his arms down on the bed. "So you want me to be human?" he whispered. "You want me to be something I never was and never can be?"

And _then_ he was shouting, the first time Moha had ever heard him raise his voice. "What do you want? You want me to _hurt?_ You want me to suffer?"

He let go, sat on the edge of the bed. And smiled that wide, crooked, inhuman Trickster-smile.

"I guess I hide it well, then," he said.

_A/N: Written after watching the Kooza DVD for the... second? third? time. This is Jason-Trickster for once, and, um... yeah. More fighting. Their relationship is going **dooooownhill**..._

...

_Ihateyou_

_butImissyou_

_all the same_

_..._

**Les Chemins Invisibles**

Îlot Fleurie burned.

He arrived too late... too late to do anything but watch the last little orange flames flicker and die, like cheerful little campfires for the fairies that don't exist.

Your first thought on arriving, which you would later sometimes agonize over and sometimes not blame yourself for at all, was _Oh great god Ce, the dream key the dream key the dream key..._

Your tent had collapsed in on itself, the supports were reduced to charred sticks on the ground, but somehow the key had managed to avoid being buried in anything more than ash and a few chunks of charcoal. You had wrapped it in cloth that was fire- and water-resistant, and the feathers which cushioned it on the inside were hardly even singed. The key was fine. It was fine.

And then standing, turning, everything as if underwater or as in a dream...

You don't remember what you did next. Whether you ran through the village, shouting their names, digging through the wreckage with your bare hands and, mercifully, not even finding bones... or whether you stood there and closed your eyes and the magic told you that you were the only living creature left there.

They're all gone. Just like that.

It makes no sense. I could think it was a dream... but I don't dream. I don't sleep.

Ferí and Líra, Tanía and Ged, Arra, the Sydírían twins, Aleqs, Afí, Teren, even the Phoenix... I wonder if they ever knew I even knew their names. A leader without a tribe, what am I? They were my everything. I don't think they ever knew it. But he never, you never... I never really had anything.

Why couldn't I have done something? I could have gotten there sooner. And then what would I have done? I can only control people. I cannot command the flames to stop burning. It's ironic, I suppose, because Brasier is my birth tribe - remember when the three tribes were separate, such a long, long time ago? But there you are. Maybe it's all my fault.

They're all dead. This morning they were alive, and now they're dead. My tribe burned alive.

"They're all dead," he whispered.

_She_ was there then, at his elbow, or more accurately at his waist or thereabouts. "What happened?" Like it wasn't obvious.

"They're all dead," he said again.

"I know," she said. "You keep saying that."

You are suddenly very, very, irrationally angry. "What are you doing here now? What were you doing until now? You could have saved them. You could have saved all of them, but you were too busy, right? Doing things more important than saving a village? They all died. My people died. Don't you care? I know they weren't all yours, but some of them were. Do you not care about-" my voice ran out of steam suddenly. Don't. Don't. Don't... do whatever you were about to do. Breathe. But I can't, because somebody's wrapped straps around my chest... Discorde and Tapage. They were hers, honorarily. And call me crazy, but I had liked the little Sydírían woman and her companion. Why is _she_ just standing there looking at me?

"Atahre," she said. She used my chaos name, which no one ever used, I was the tac'ana to my tribe and Nórcálían to her. "I could _not_ have saved them. Honestly, my abilities are not much more than yours.

_A/N: ...This was the second draft of my first Sillon des Rêves fic, and...it stayed unfinished. There was a finished first draft which was a bit different, but whatever, I guess I liked this one better when I wrote it. Technically I suppose this is long enough to be a oneshot, but there is no way I am ever posting it by itself, because:_

_1. FFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUU this thing is so out of character with the whole SdR world I wanna shoot myself for ever writing this. Poor Mage._

_2. What is **with** all the viewpoints changing and stuff? What is that even **about**? I guess I was really into that stuff at that point. Also into all the accented names and stuff. Jeesh._

...

You can tell Lightning is falling apart.

You thought it was going to be all right at first, really you did, after everything was put back together and it seemed like the magic was appeased. But it became obvious rather quickly that this was not the case. And what could you do? You went from tac'ana to taca in half a second, and six seconds after that was when everything started going wrong. Why couldn't it have been six seconds before?

In that one second when all was confusion, and he looked to you to do something, and in that second you were just Irys and Norcalian again...

Do you remember the first time you saw him? You were seven then, and he was five. But that was a long time ago, and you have no idea how old any of you, any of the tacas are, only your relative ages to one another. You've been taca for who knows how many years, tac'ana for twenty of them. You became a taca-in-training at age five. You've been called Earth by everyone since then, and you think probably only six people, including yourself, know your real name.

And you're blaming yourself for this. After all, it was two of your people who did this. and all right, they're not technically your people, they're from Sydíría and that's why they're so utterly clueless about, well, everything. But you were still in charge of them, _you_ were the one who took everyone to Sydíría and brought _them_ back – goodness knows why, even if they did do you a favor once – and you can't stop feeling you should have done something.

Earth's job is not to do something. Earth's job is to accept what happens and to make the best of it, weave your spells by singing and don't try to change the future, Irys. Earth's job is to sit there watching until Lightning loses what control he has left completely and the Council calls you to help them find a new Lighting taca.

You're not going to let that happen.

You know he's never going to ask you for help. He's not going to ask anyone. He's going to continue to tell himself that he can handle it, right up until the magic takes him over and he snaps like a piece of string. You've seen what that looks like, in the form of the former Wind, and the former city of Gethíór. You're not going to let Îlot Fleurie, or Norcalian, become former.

You were never really _close_ to him. You had no friends other than your fellow tacas-in-training, and they weren't exactly _friends_ by normal standards. When you got older, he had two girls to choose from, you and Wind; and you had, well, really two boys to choose from (Fire being more than ten years older than you, which is a lot when you're fifteen), him and Water. He mostly chose Wind, who was the youngest and delicate and regarded with awe by all of you even though she regarded all of you with awe too; and you mostly chose Water, who was two years older than you and smooth and intelligent and who you thought knew everything. But you and Lightning would share a moment occasionally, and you would laugh at his odd sense of humor and odd, lightning smile, and he would watch and smile at and pet the little strange creatures you animated from stones or sticks or whatever was lying around. It didn't matter. Tacas don't have friends, even in childhood or adolescence.

But you don't want to see him die. You wouldn't want to see Wind or Water or Fire die, either. You don't want to see those around him, regular ordinary Huondil men and women, die. You don't want to see what happens to the countryside when the magic is let of the leash. Wind wreaked so much havoc last time, and Wind wasn't even the tac'ana. You can't let it happen again, and you don't care what the Council says.

You're going to do something.

You need to help him. Earth is grounding for Lightning. And you're the healer. That's really what you're for. Lightning is fast, impulsive and powerful, but Earth is slow and healing. You've helped many other people. You can do it for him.

And to hell with the Council. You're going to.

_A/N: All comments for above fic, times three. *shoots self in the head*_

...

_keep your humanity_

_hahahahahahahaha..._

...

"Ei!" The whisper, sounding where its whisperer was probably not supposed to be, hissed through the air. Its hissee, an extremely short woman wearing pantaloons which made her nearly as wide as she was tall, clambered over a box and beckoned for her companion to follow her. There was no one else around, and the two sneaked behind the stage and peered down the trapdoor set into the back face on it - this was the first chance they'd gotten to see where it went, and they were going to find it... er... as soon as one of them opened.

There was a lot of pushing and shoving that occurred at this time, and also apparently a certain amount of appealing to Tapage's inner macho man (there was no doubt that there was one in there _somewhere_), which eventually resulted in his going up to the trapdoor and jerking it open.

The two of them peered into the gloom beyond, and then shrieked as two... things, one a horrible tall walking face, the other a hollow-eyed ghost, emerged from the dark and advanced on them. The two clowns fell over each other as they tried to get away, and banged themselves on various things several times before they finally managed to flee.

Besiana fell off her stilts with laughing, and had to be caught and supported by Lira, who unstrapped her mask and tucked it under her arm before starting to help her friend off with her own, substantially bigger mask. "That was _hilarious,_" Besiana giggled, collapsing against a pile of boxes. "The looks on their faces..."

"I'd missed these big masks." Lira grinned. "That was totally awesome. Will you teach me to walk on stilts sometime, Besi?"

"Sure. It's really easy." Besiana started unstrapping her stilts. "Just like having longer legs."

"Yeah, so I hear. Still, though." Lira studied the mask she'd taken off, its stern blank gaze staring off into space, and, one got the feeling, time as well. "We really scared them, didn't we? I kind of feel bad about it, actually."

"Aw, come on, Lira. We were just having fun. They shouldn't be poking around down here anyway."

"You have a point," Lira conceded. "But, Besi, seriously I think they're really scared of us. We al know what it feels like to be an outsider and not know what's going on, and the least we can do is be nice to other people."

"They're _clowns,_ Lira. Believe me, I know - I travelled with them, remember? I think they're creations. Not like us. Like your mage, you know."

There was silence in the dusty storage area under the stage for a minute, the laughter of a moment ago fading.

"I'm sorry about him, Lira," Besiana said eventually.

"Me too. I'm sorry _for_ him, though. He's all messed up and he tries to be normal, and I think only about half of the people even notice. He's hurt, Besi, and that's just how he's made... he's like us, really. But I wouldn't want to be a creation."

"Me neither." Besiana sighed, then grinned. "But he can be really funny, and he's not hurting all the time, I don't think, Lira. Things are a lot better now, aren't they?"

"Yeah. They are." It wasn't in the girls' natures to be depressed. Depression didn't come naturally to any of the invisible wanderers. That was one of their defining features.

"Besi?"

"Yeah?"

"The Phoenix is your sister, isn't she?"

"Yes. She is. Was?"

"What... happened?"

Besiana shrugged. "Things change. People change. Sometimes they change into phoenixes. She's still the same in a lot of ways. Different in more ways, but not completely."

"Yeah... Do you miss her?"

"A bit. But it's like Sandara says. We've all got to make our own ways."

"Like who says?"

"Sandara. Feri's sister? C'mon, didn't Feri tell you about her even once? I'd have thought he'd be telling you everything, now that you two are in _looove._" Besiana elbowed her friend in the ribs. Lira blushed.

Besiana grinned. "No, seriously, I'm happy for you, Lira. He's a really cute boy. Anyway, though, Sandara's a singer. Just inserted herself into the Shaman's retinue and expected to be accepted. And La Shaman did. She's amazing."

"What, La Shaman or Sandara?"

"Both." They both giggled for a while.

_A/N: Another unfinished SdR fic. This one is... better, though I still don't like it at all. Chapitre 1 and 2 fics work better in the generalities than the specifics._

...

_Everyone Else:_

We are the Embarrassants: you may pretend you can't see us, but we are still here.

We are the unheard singers, the unseen dancers. We will drag you out of yourself until you join us.

We are the misfits, those outside of society. You can try to get rid of us, but we will walk on unfazed.

We are those who have remembered how to live. Do you believe we envy you? We rather feel sorry for you.

Do you see them, the invisible paths of heart and soul?* We do. Come along, and let us show you. They are not hard to climb.

_A/N: okay, I actually like this one. Phew._

_*Apologies to Cirque._

...

We know what we're doing. We're playing a role. And damn us if we don't do it _well!_

...

**Kooza**

"...Crooner?"

"Yeh?"

"If you could choose, would you rather be you or me?"

"Oh, me. Definitely."

"Really? Funny, I'd say the same thing."

"What, you'd rather be me?"

"No, I'd rather be me. Out of curiosity, though, why would you rather be you? I mean, I have control of this world, magic powers, access to anything I want... a huge fan following... And you're just kind of here in the shadow, waiting for your part in the show. What have you got that I don't?"

"Skills with women, honey. Immortality. And also a smaller ego."

"_Smaller ego?_ Are you kidding me?"

"Well, maybe. But I'm serious about the immortality. And the women. You could have them too if you tried, but you don't. You're just a kid, boy. Sheesh, I remember when you got here, with your kite and everything, all scared and cute. Sheesh, actually, I remember when your predecessor got here, and the guy before. him. I've been around for a loooong time."

"I know. You don't need to keep reminding me. I _am_ in charge here, you know."

"I do know. I do know, kid."

"Would you stop calling me _kid_? I do have a title and it's nice when people use it."

"All right. I do know, Trickster."

"Good."

_A/N: This is the one thing I very much dislike about the fancommunity around Kooza. All the fans either believe that 1. the Trickster and the Crooner are archnemesises, or that 2. the Trickster and the Crooner are the same character. I normally subscribe to 2. (though you wouldn't know it, from my fanfics), but I see no reason why there shouldn't be a 3., which would be that the Crooner is just another performer in the Trickster's show, with a role to play like anyone else. Also see a bit of theory on the inner workings of Kooza, Trickster/Innocent, etc._

...

He looked at the Innocent, his white eyes expressionless and, by default, intimidating. The Innocent looked back, small and tense and scared, utterly alone no matter how many faceless people he might be surrounded with, betrayed and abandoned by _him, _the one person who had ever been on his side, with absolutely no idea how much the man standing across from him had been through in order to find him and bring him back to his realm.

The Trickster closed his white eyes briefly, dropped his arms, crossed the stage in three running steps, dropped to his knees, and swept the Innocent up in a painfully tight, centuries-long hug.

_Turn, good lady; our Perdita is found._

He didn't notice for a few minutes that the Innocent was crying into his shoulder, tears wetting Trickster's jacket, clinging to him almost as tightly as _he_ was to Innocent, using him in that one moment as all the parents and friends and caretakers he had never, ever had. It was much longer before the Trickster realized that _he_ was crying, too.

_A/N: You can tell that I was in the middle of Winter's Tale rehearsal/run by my random insertion of lines which seem vaguely appropriate into any text I happen to be working on at the moment. Okay, it was more than vaguely appropriate this time, except for the genders. But whatever._

_This could technically be an MdlK drabble too, at the end of the Even Gods cycle. But it's not a spoiler, because I have no idea whether the story arc will end up leaning this way or not._

...

He watched the Innocent now, every hour of every day, over the months as the boy was passed through hand after hand, guardian after guardian, always ultimately fending for himself.

And, the Trickster thought, a kite and a crown were not going to be enough.

It had been chance that he had seen the boy the first time, walking through the park alone with his kite. He had known immediately: _this is the one I want._ Brought him into the kingdom, shown him all that could be created, helped him grow and learn, given him something to help him through the years ahead until he returned someday. But it had not been enough. What he had neglected to give, slightly arrogantly but understandably in one who had to carefully meter and organize each emotion he showed, was hope of return. His last goodbye had been too final.

But he still let the boy alone in the years which followed, staying with his original plan. The Innocent did not grow appreciably. He remained wide-eyed and lonely. Wide-eyed and lonely, but hopeful. The Trickster watched as, time after time, the boy swallowed a beating or scolding or, worse, outright neglect for days on end, blinking down his tears and biting his lip, and went outside to fly his kite.

The Trickster was not all that accustomed to feeling emotions other than pride and amusement, but as the years went by, he found himself extremely angry at the treatment a piece of _his_ property was getting. Angry and wondering at how on earth the Innocent managed to keep everything down. He did cry in the dark once in a while, but not nearly so often as anyone would have expected.

And the Trickster continued to wonder until the day when Innocent, who must have been in his teenage years, stepped in front of a truck.

He didn't throw himself under its wheels or jump in front of it. He simply stood in the street, staring at the tin-wheeled, many-tonned contraption as it came chugging toward him, and did not step out of the way.

_A/N: Okay, yes, this is unfinished, though I have no idea where I was going to go with it - apparently I fail at writing longer Trickster-and-Innocent fics._

_But YEEEEEAHHHHHH. Depressing, I know. However, this strikes me as literally the most likely option for Innocent if Trickster doesn't call him back soon. He's that kind of person. I'm sorry._

...

**La Nouba crossovers**

_A Moment in Time: _

The juggler stopped.

There were two people watching him from the front row, a man and a woman, both in their late twenties or early thirties. The man was wearing a purple suit, looking a bit eclectic with his slicked-back hair and asymmetrical eyebrows, and had his arm across the shoulders of the woman, who had short hair and a red dress which sparkled like a million rubies.

He froze, staring at them. They looked back.

Time started to flow again. His assistant handed him the eight hoops for the next part of the act. He blinked, and the illusion vanished. It had been a trick of the light that made the man's suit look purple instead of the navy blue it truly was, and there was nothing abnormal about his eyebrows. The woman was not wearing a dress but rather a long red coat wrapped around her tightly, and her hair had been growing out, almost to her shoulders now.

She looked away, whispering to her companion, and the juggler turned his attention back to his act. The show needed to go on.

He searched for the couple during the curtain call, and saw that the two eats were empty, the young pair gone. He inquired abut who had had reservations for the seats to the frazzled house manager, who told him that they had been purchased by a middle-aged businessman and his wife, who were currently standing outside the theater complaining rather loudly about the refund policy in case of having one's pockets picked while standing in line outside the show.

_A/N: ...I don't know what to call the Kooza/La Nouba interface, but this is obviously a short extension of Superstar_II._

...

She couldn't sleep at all. She lay and sat awake in her tiny cardboard room and blinked in sheer exhaustion at the ceiling. The memory of the skeletons, the danger was too fresh. She was too afraid that if she closed her eyes for a moment, nightmares - or, worse, the things themselves - might come. When she did doze off for a moment, she woke crying.

There was a knock on her door. She jumped and gasped. "Green?"

It was the juggler. He stepped in, closing the door behind him. "Are you okay? I heard you crying."

"I'm scared," she whispered. "That they'll come again."

He slipped into the bed with her. Unmeditated, un-adult, parent and child. "If they do," he assured her, "I will personally make sure that they don't _touch_ you."

She slept the rest of the night in his arms, feeling as safe as she ever had in her life.

_A/N: A teeny little concept sketch-y thing for a major crossover soap opera-type fic I've been turning over in my mind for a while. I've got more (better, IMO) written down, but it might be spoiler-y if I ever do decide to write the fic, so I'm not gonna post it. This little thing was labeled 'snippet/fluff'. _

_It's a struggle for me to keep the Green Bird in character, whenever I write her. I realize that I totally failed in this fic, and got a bit blurry on the juggler as well. I'll try to be better._

_And, um, yes, that is majorly awkward. You can decide that the juggler is gay, if it helps - it's not like he isn't campy enough. But either way, this is really a sad drabble considering what would happen later on in the fic..._

...

**Alegría**

Death came once more to Alegría.

This time she came not in the form of a single entity, but as a creeping darkness which swept over the land, enveloping everything in dusk. Tamir, the lamplighter, was the first to notice the dimness which lowered over the realm, dulling the colors slightly into grey. He told the Bronx, and the Bronx told the nymphs, and the nymphs told the angels, and the angels told the White Singer, and so the word spread to every person in the kingdom: _The darkness is coming._

Some did not believe the signs of approaching Death. Fleur and the Old Birds laughed, not hearing or not understanding what the angels said to them. The White Singer looked uncertainly to her sister, who sat with a sad smile on her face, watching everything as if she knew already exactly what would happen.

The darkness spread slowly at first, dimming the realm like a natural sky after sunset. The inhabitants went about their business as usual, interacting slightly more clumsily than usual in the unaccustomed dusk, not wholly convinced that anything more unusual than a new arrival was happening. But the nymphs, birdlike in their extra senses, were uneasy, looking upwards and always around, and Tamir, protector of the kingdom, stayed looking out for anything which might suddenly appear.

Death, the hoop manipulator explained to Little Tamir, was the black-cloaked woman on stilts who had come for the contortionists. They, having proved their worth, were angels now - not guardian angels like the men and women in white who served and protected Alegría, but real angels in the afterlife, in dreams. But Death was always on the search for souls to add to her kingdom, and she returned every so often to see if she could snare someone young and beautiful to keep for herself.

"Like me," the girl said, and sighed.

"She wouldn't really take you, would she?" Little Tamir said, with his head on one side. The hoop manipulator hugged him, and didn't answer.

What no one expected, at any point, was the tide of absolute darkness which suddenly appeared at the end of the stage, washing over a group of the Old Birds, who disappeared into the blackness as quickly and neatly as if a gigantic black beast had swallowed them. And in less than three seconds, everything was panic.

The darkness reached out tendrils, waves, grasping at anyone who was within reach. The Flying Man was gone, Fleur held desperately to the scaffolding to prevent himself from being pulled in more than halfway, and the hoop manipulator had to hold Little Tamir back as he watched his father dive for an angel and throw her upstage before the darkness swallowed them both. It crept upstage, chasing the cornered acrobats toward the orchestra, and a wind started, blowing them down toward the main stage and toward Death. They held onto whatever they could, sometimes each other, the stage when there was nothing else, as they were pulled down and darkness closed over them.

Little Tamir and the hoop manipulator clung to each other and to the back of the stage

_A/N: This is another unfinished fic which I came across while poking around my computer (no, it's not new, it's from a couple months ago at least), yet another one of those expressing-my-feelings drabbles, and I'm rather angry at myself for discontinuing it **in the middle of a sentence**, because **** me but I rather like the writing in this. Maybe I'll continue or finish it one day, if anyone has any suggestions whatsoever on how to continue it. Like, literally, I have no idea what would happen after this._

...

They watched the clown on his suitcase from their perch above the audience, his arms wrapped lightly around her. The clown, the mop-topped Everyman, hung his coat and hat, the only things he had to call his, on the rungs which stretched up to the roof scaffolding, then started as the coat suddenly gained a life of its own, his arm which was not his arm flicking lint off his shoulder, fondling and embracing him.

"This makes me cry," she whispered to her angel in white. "I know," he whispered back. "Me too."

They watched together as he read the letter, tore it up, and the pieces transformed into snow which fell on him and on the stage.

"Never leave me," she said softly. "Promise. Never do that to me."

"I promise you," he said.

His arms held her tighter as the snowfall turned into a blizzard, blowing paper in a stream into the audience. The clown struggled against the wind as it and the music and the audience roared.

She reached out and caught a flake of paper snow, blown all the way up here on the stands, turned to her angel and smiled.

_A/N: I am not even going to list all the ways in which this is a horrible piece of writing. I don't know what I was thinking. Honestly._


	2. Cats

I don't have an awful lot of these, to be honest - most of them are posted in _Cats oneshots_. But these are what I've got.

(I'll upload some more tomorrow or the next day - there's a limit to how much I can type up at 1 in the morning. Stay posted here, 'kay?)

...

"I'm so scared... I'm so scared..." -Electra

"Shh, baby. It's going to be okay." -Tugger

_A/N: These are my original Author's Notes: "Because people seem to think that because Tugger is a rockstar, he's a self-absorbed jerk who's only interested in getting laid. **This is not the case**."_

_Macavity attack? I don't know. In any case, Munkustrap is not there, and Tugger's going to have to deal with it. I could expand this into a whole fic if I so desired._


	3. Shakespeare

Don't have a lot of these either, though I have a feeling there might be some hiding somewhere that I'm just forgetting about. I'll upload them as I excavate them.

...

_Saint Crispin's Day:_

The day is ours.

"Captain Macmorris!"

The battle is ours.

"Captain Jamy!"

France is ours.

"_Captain Gower!_"

Fluellen is... not here.

"Captain Gower!

_A/N: The beginning of a slashy Fluellen/Gower fic which was going to involve moderate use of Google Translate. I think leaving it like this is juuuuust fine._

...

_Sixteen Winters:_

_"...Thou,_

_His cupbearer, whom I from meaner form _

_Have benched and reared to worship..."_

**Camillo**

This is my place in the world, here under the stairs and behind the scenes. I have lived at the palace since I was five years old, ascended from stable boy to kitchen boy to server to page to cupbearer and lord, following my master the prince up until he became my lord the king. I know better than anyone else that I would still be nothing if he had not taken a fancy for me, seeing, as he said, that my hard work and my looks together might be more useful taking part in the court than cleaning it. Do not think I am not still humble.

But today I certainly have something to brag about, if I so chose. Let the other lords mock me behind my back. Today I will know it is only from jealousy.

"Come, Camillo, dance with me! You can't hide over here in the corner forever!" My lady - yes, she is my lady - skips over to me, her heavy boots clomping on the stone floor, and grabs my hand. "Paulina, I can't dance," I protest.

"Then learn now!" Then she softens, pulls me to her, her hands around my waist. I am so small, half-starved all through adolescence, that were she not in skirts, one would think she were the man and not I. There certainly have been men ere now who have seen no difference twixt me and a woman. "But kiss me first, my Camillo," Paulina commands.

I comply more than willingly. Though this party marks midwinter, my heart is warmer than it has ever been. She is mine and I am hers, a pair of turtledoves that will never part.

I know there are jealous eyes on me, and so I kiss her again. Though many young lords at court sigh over this waiting-gentlewoman, she has eyes for none but me. We are a strange pair, she headstrong and I shy, but perhaps not so strange as we could be. I am still amazed that she has chosen me, but she must be in earnest. She tells me she admires me. Working hard has finally caught me a prize other than older lords' lewd looks, and what a prize it is.

We will be married come spring, so we have promised each other.

**Paulina**

Camillo was right when he said he couldn't dance. I ask you, is't so unreasonable to expect a courtier to know how to dance? One would think it was a required skill. Free-style at least, I'm not the world's expert at ballroom dancing either, but this boy just has no idea what to do with his feet. Ah well, there are enough lords in the world who can dance and are no less revolting for it. I do, however, thank the gods that I have steel-toed boots on.

"Please, trip over your own feet and not mine if you must be constantly tripping over something, Camillo. No, let's go sit down."

"I thought I was doing all right," he says, but follows me to the refreshments table. Our king, Leontes, is indeed a generous ruler - being not too much older than me, he enjoys a good party himself.

_A/N: I've written a couple paragraphs more of this, I just need to type it up. That should happen sometime soon._

_So, um, I was in a production (well, two actually, but that's a different story) of Winter's Tale this summer, and part of the backstory our director came up with for the characters was that Camillo and Paulina used to be together - maybe engaged - until Antigonus came along, with more money or better looks or good connections or whatever. So Paulina hooked up with him, thus breaking Camillo's heart and making him decide to devote his life to public service. And the rest is Shakespeare._

_Camillo was played amazingly by a girl in the production I was in, and in writing the fic I wanted to figure out some way to use her version of the character while still having him be, well, male. Thus slight implications of catamite-Camillo. Apologies, Camillo. _


End file.
